Today's networked computing environments are used in businesses for generating, storing, and manipulating large amounts of critical data. For example, banks, insurance companies, and manufacturing companies generate and store critical data related to their business and to their customers. It is therefore very important that the computing systems used for storing the critical data are highly reliable. “High Availability” computing systems employ various means for optimizing reliability.
High Availability systems are generally designed such that single points of failure are avoided in the portions of the system considered “critical”. For example, multiple central processing units may provide redundancy, and multiple power supplies ensure protection against the failure of one. However, other parts of the system do not employ high availability mechanisms, primarily because of complexity, expense, and bandwidth conservation requirements.
One area in which it would be advantageous to provide high availability is in the environmental monitoring systems used in computing systems. The environmental monitoring system is used for monitoring and management of various components such as power supplies, temperature controls, fan speeds, voltage and power levels, and the like. The system cannot properly operate unless these functions are monitored and controlled at all times. So, what is needed is an environmental monitoring and management system that employs mechanisms for avoiding single points of failure efficiently and effectively.